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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23060992">Colossus</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister'>GretchenSinister</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>GretchenSinister's First Blacksand Week [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rise of the Guardians (2012)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, F/M, Giant Robots, I wrote this while high on Pacific Rim, M/M, Permanently Unfinished, caveat lector, ngl Pitch's experiences are pretty fucked up</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:21:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,887</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23060992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Okay, so the wager prompt is being ignored for today in favor of GIANT ROBOTS.</p><p>I regret nothing! This is mostly a prologue, more blacksand-ish stuff should appear later this evening.</p><p>[Added for clarity: Sandy's previous co-pilot has been killed in battle. Now he's being assigned a new one.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>E. Aster Bunnymund/Jack Frost, Nicholas St. North/Toothiana, Pitch Black/Sanderson Mansnoozie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>GretchenSinister's First Blacksand Week [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656247</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Blacksand Short Fics</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted on Tumblr on 7/12/2013.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>            In the hangar on the Lunar base, the three remaining Colossi allotted for the defense of Earth stood in their docks, each three hundred feet of the most advanced engineering that could be brought to bear against the Fearlings.</p><p>            They weren’t merely machines, though. Not just spaceships. They had to look like people so that the pilots would feel as though they themselves were fighting, and fighting alongside fellow warriors. It was the only way to harness the mad, raw, endocrine bravery that was needed to allow the humans and allied races to stand up against the psychological onslaught of the shadowy creatures that had appeared from the darkness beyond the edge of the galaxy, seemingly intent on nothing but annihilation of every other sentient.</p><p>            Facing up against forces like that wasn’t something just anybody could do. Those who could were accordingly given a little more leeway with their equipment than they might otherwise have had.</p><p>            In light of this, it was perhaps not surprising that the Colossi had acquired names and appearances rather at odds with standard military stolidity.</p><p>            In Dock 3 stood JF300EAB65X106, better known as Jackrabbit. It gleamed in metallic flake white and ice blue, with highlights like tribal tattoos in brilliant spring green and subtly shifting pastels decorating its arms, legs, and chest.</p><p>            In Dock 2 stood TSOF700NSN0343, known to its pilots and fans as Cookie, for reasons that had never been made clear—though both Brain and Body would laugh wickedly whenever the question of the name was brought up in interviews. Decked out in reds and iridescent greens that shaded through blue and purple depending on the light, it was twice as gaudy as Christmas and utterly unforgettable.</p><p>            In Dock 1 stood PS8OSSMS50X103, which had been known as Butterfly Effect. Its almost blindingly bright gold and beautiful shining Morpho blue color scheme was now sickeningly contrasted with the twisted, jagged hole ripped in the metal of its chest cavity.</p><p>            Repair workers and their robots swarmed over it like ants, working round the clock to get it back in working order—there was no telling when the Fearlings would attack again, and the most recent battle had shown that three Colossi were barely sufficient for Earth’s defense.</p><p>            While the repairs continued, a short, plump man with blond hair and a sweet face sat on the cold hangar floor in front of the ex-Butterfly Effect, staring up at the machine while weariness and sorrow vied for supremacy on his face. In the battle with the Fearlings, his Body had been ripped out of the Butterfly Effect and killed in the cold vacuum of space. Now, the name they had jointly decided upon was no longer valid and Sandy, the Brain Pilot, felt as though it was his heart that had been ripped out, instead of the Heart Deck of the Colossus.</p><hr/><p>            “You expect him to start bonding with another Body NOW?” Toothiana, known as Tooth to her friends, looked ready to rip off one of General Lunanof’s arms and to then try to beat some sense into him with it. “Do you not understand your own program? Psyche was Sandy’s <em>everything</em>. That’s how we Bodies and Brains are supposed to be to each other! Fucking hell. This isn’t some relationship you rebound from into another one.” She turned to Nicholas St. North, her Brain, for support.</p><p>            He nodded, placing his large hand over hers. “Tooth is right. The level of mental and physical rapport needed between Brain and Body to pilot a Colossus is not something that can happen overnight, even if no trauma is involved.”</p><p>            General Lunanof frowned at them. “Your concerns have already been brought up in meetings with the other top brass <em>and</em> the scientists who designed the Colossi’s interface system. They have already agreed that it is both necessary and possible to bond a previously trained Brain with a new Body. By the time Butterfly Effect—or whatever Sandy and the new Body end up calling it—is repaired, its pilots will be ready.”</p><p>            “Why are you pushing this so hard?” Aster, the Brain of the Jackrabbit, asked, green eyes narrowed in a rabbitlike face. As a Pooka, a few decades ago it would have been somewhat unusual for him to be serving as a defender of Earth rather than his homeworld, but Earth had volunteered to serve as the refugee homeworld of the few remaining survivors of the destruction of the Pookas’ planet. Now, he defended his home just as much as any human.</p><p>            General Lunanof sighed, but his face remained expressionless. “Surely you can figure it out. We were barely able to defend Earth against the Fearlings with all three of the Guardian Colossi. We need to have Sandy and his new Body ready to fight as soon as possible. We don’t know when the Fearlings will come back, but we know they will.”</p><p>            “Yeah, we know all that,” Jack Frost, the Body of the Jackrabbit, said. “And we want to drive the Fearlings out of the galaxy as much as anyone. Hell, we want to fight alongside Sandy as much as anyone. But what I think Aster’s trying to say is, why not start with a whole new Brain-Body team?”</p><p>            “From where?” Lunanof fixed Jack with a steely gaze. “You know the considerable time and expense involved in training a Colossus pilot—including the psychological screening required to guarantee they will be compatible with their co-pilot.”</p><p>            “Look, I know all about that ‘time and expense’,” Jack said, irritated. Lunanof had hand-picked him for the program after an incident that had put him in a coma for several weeks. Jack hadn’t liked waking up to be told he was going to be a Colossus pilot before even finding out if his sister was all right. Even afterwards, Lunanof thought he should be much more grateful than he was for the chance to be in such an elite force. “But with a new pair of pilots we would be sure that they’d be able to work together. You want Sandy to train with a new Body? How would that work? An experienced Brain training with a Body totally new to the interface—time and expense! It’s going to be way more of a hassle to figure out a new protocol for this than to just start training a new team normally.”</p><p>            “Ah, but you see, we are not going to be assigning Sandy an inexperienced Body.”</p><p>            Everyone in the room sat in silence for a moment, before North laughed. “Good joke, general. But it is not as if there are spare Bodies lying around.”</p><p>            “There is one.”</p><p>            “No.” Aster said.</p><p>            “He lost his Brain in the battle of Arcturus—”</p><p>            “He’s still awaiting trial for killing his Brain in the battle of Arcturus!” Tooth yelled, standing up and slamming the table with her delicate hands.”</p><p>            “Body Pilot Toothiana! Stand down. The formal inquiry has been ongoing, and no evidence of foul play has been found."</p><p>            “He <em>admitted</em> it!”</p><p>            “He said only the same kinds of things that Sandy said after returning from the battle in which Psyche was killed.”</p><p>            “General,” North interrupted, “What about the psychological profiles? I mean, we all knew Kozmotis Pitchiner when he was training to be Colossi pilot with us. When, at the academy, he got the nickname Pitch Black. I don’t think he and Sandy could…”</p><p>            “They can and they will become competent co-pilots. All the appropriate screening has been completed.” Lunanof shot a warning glance around the table. “You will remember that any further relationships that tend to form between pilots are not part of the design of this program.”</p><p>            “But has any pair of Colossus pilots ever not—I mean, that was the other super creepy thing about Pitch Black!” Jack began.</p><p>            “It does not matter, and the military officially does not care. Now, I believe I have given you all the information about the new arrangement that you require. If you still wish to make complaints, I suggest you discuss them with Sandy first. After all, surely he’ll know best if they’re valid or not. Good day, Guardians.”</p><p>            The four left the debriefing room, not a single content face between them. “Psyche shouldn’t be replaceable like this,” Aster said. “Sandy needs time to mourn her. Yeah, the battle was a clusterfuck, but we could work with two Colossi for a while. It would be hard work, but that’s what we’re used to.”</p><p>            “And your favorite part of any challenge,” Jack said, expression lightening. “Let’s go visit Sandy. I mean, we probably <em>should</em> see what he thinks about this, yeah? As soon as he knows we have his back no matter what, maybe he’ll tell Lunanof where to stuff it.”</p><p>            “More likely he will say he will pilot alone, and we will be stuck between fire and frying pan of arguments,” North said.</p><p>            “Except he’ll just have that silent and stubborn determination, which is harder to deal with than Lunanof’s bullshit,” Tooth remarked. Now in the hallway where their base quarters were, she spotted a member of the cleaning staff leaving Sandy’s rooms. “Hey!” She called out to him. “Isn’t Brain Pilot Sandy in his quarters?”</p><p>            The man shook his head. “Heard he was going to meet his new Body Pilot. Terrible thing, isn’t it? What this war forces on people. Psyche and Sandy—what a couple. Met ‘em before. They signed autographs for my kid…and that Pitch Black’s a freak. I know I’m just a cog in the machine, but man, the things you hear…” He shook his head. “I suppose they’ll be up in the training suites now.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which we learn a little bit more about the Battle of Arcturus, and Pitch and Sandy talk.  Oh warning it gets a bit weird because Pitch’s former co-pilot was his daughter, but I swear everything is explained.</p><p>(Sadly I was not able to get to the angsty naked touching, but that’s what tomorrow is for!)</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Originally posted on Tumblr on 7/13/2013.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>            “This was all Lunanof’s idea, just so you understand that,” Pitch Black said to Sandy. They were in the now little-used Brain-Body integration room, each sitting on one of the narrow, stark white platforms on which new Brains and Bodies would lay when first interfacing. Under the bright, sterile lights in the bright, sterile room, Pitch looked exhausted. Even at the academy he had been lean, but now he looked gaunt. His olive skin seemed to have underlying tones of gray, and his eyes were surrounded by dark circles. He ran his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “I didn’t volunteer. Frankly, I’m surprised you even agreed to meet with me. After the battle of Arcturus, I was a wreck for months. I mean, I’m still a wreck. But back then I could barely speak for screaming.”</p><p>            “I looked at your battle footage,” Sandy said quietly. “As long as it ran. You were the only one fighting, at the end.”</p><p>            “And then the blackness.”</p><p>            It felt almost impossible to speak. But they had to: they had to get to know each other so that the interface wouldn’t be a complete shock. Promising pilots had been reduced to catatonia when it was pushed too fast. And that had happened after years of sharing the same classes, the same meals, the same friends.</p><p>            Sandy swallowed, and looked down at the floor. “I feel like I murdered Psyche. I feel like I’ve committed suicide. I’m having trouble believing I’m still alive.”</p><p>            “I felt the same way after my battle.” Pitch paused. “At least you did not have to wait for a rescue party.”</p><p>            “Alone for twelve days. I can’t even imagine—but does it really make a difference, Pitch? I don’t believe I’ll ever not feel alone again. The presence of those who are not Psyche…it doesn’t help.”</p><p>            “But I wasn’t alone, for those twelve days.” Pitch’s voice has dropped, become almost inaudible. “You’ve probably noticed…the Fearlings can survive in hard vacuum for a time. I—god, there was no way of recording what happened, and even the memory imagers don’t help. They never show the same thing twice. When I returned, when I was arrested…held in custody…it wasn’t because they really thought I had killed my Brain on purpose. Everyone who knows anything about the interface knows that’s impossible.</p><p>            “They’ve kept me away from everyone, investigated me, because they weren’t sure that I hadn’t…brought some Fearlings back with me once I was rescued. They’re pretty sure now that I didn’t. Otherwise they would never let me near you. But I’m not sure at all.</p><p>            “I have nightmares. Every night. I see—I see the Black Gaia—the head—floating towards that black ship, like a hole in space. I try to move and I’m always too slow, too slow. I see—”</p><p>            “I see the speck of blue in shattered metal,” Sandy said. “That shade of blue that was the sky I woke to every morning. Sometimes I called her Wild Blue Yonder. Six feet of solid muscle, had dyed her skin when she was young and earning money as a wrestler. And she looked so small, floating in the pieces of the heart deck.”</p><p>            “I never saw her body,” Pitch said. “Not in reality. I don’t think. The Fearlings showed me…Sandy, you and Psyche were…physical lovers, were you not?”</p><p>            Sandy nodded. “Aren’t all Brain and Body pilots? I mean—” He clapped his hand over his mouth.</p><p>            “That is the assumption. It made me and Seraphina outsiders, of course, seeing as she was my daughter. Flesh of my flesh—but never, I swear to you, flesh on flesh. The interface, of course, complicated things…we knew things about each other that perhaps father and daughter should not. She knew of how I fell in love with her mother. And of her own conception. I knew of her growing into a woman. Of her youthful affair with a boy from her school, before we took the aptitude test and joined the academy…but these things were such a small part of living in each other’s minds, of thinking together, of moving together, of fighting together…”</p><p>            “The memories were no more or less than your own. Sometimes I only realized I was remembering something of Psyche’s life when I noticed that most of the people around me were shorter. We were one person. After the interface—it seemed so natural for us to join bodily—do you understand why others would have thought…?”</p><p>            “Yes.” Pitch sighed. “I won’t be able to hide this from you when we interface. We had close calls. Not very close, physically, because it was easier away from the interface. But on long missions, in the Black Gaia, when we fell asleep at the same time, while we were linked…sometimes we would dream at the same time…it didn’t seem wrong, then. And that terrified me.</p><p>            “The Fearlings can tell what you’re afraid of. So during those twelve days…they showed me…myself. Looking like a monster. Like a corpse. With her. I don’t think it was her real body, but I’ll never know for sure. I almost opened an airlock and stepped out. I probably would have done it, sooner or later, if the rescue ships hadn’t arrived.”</p><p>            “I suppose your story is worse than mine,” Sandy said.</p><p>            Pitch looked at the shorter man sitting on the opposite platform. His skin seemed sallow, his blond hair and light brown eyes dull. Despite his roundness, he looked somehow insubstantial, as if he was going to fade away at any moment. “But yours is newer. I think…I think a Brain losing a Body, or a Body losing a Brain, is the greatest tragedy anyone can ever experience.”</p><p>            “Something they didn’t count on when they made the interface so good.” Sandy looked up. “Pitch, we can’t try it, not yet. We’d be brain-dead three seconds after linking up. Even after the re-done brainwave tests, the psychological battery…the doctors are probably right, that eventually we could work together, because sure as hell they’ve never been wrong about that—even the veg showed compatibility as they fuzzed out—but I’m not ready yet.</p><p>            “Psyche is dead. I’m Psyche. I died with her. Paralysis within thirty seconds. Suffocation. Ice in the lungs. This body thought it was dying. Only the Butterfly Effect’s life support kept me alive, when I was—mostly healthy.”</p><p>            “You look like you’re still trying to die now.”</p><p>            “Well. So do you.”</p><p>            Pitch laughed hollowly. “And I haven’t managed it yet. So what should we do? Keep talking?”</p><p>            “Words are the least part of everything,” Sandy replied. “I think…I think it might be helpful for me to try and understand your body before we try the interface. You’re very different from Psyche, so it might not be…so bad.”</p><p>            “You feel able? At a time like this?”</p><p>            Sandy blushed. “No, no, I didn’t mean that. I just meant looking and touching. I’m going to need to know how you move. The length of your limbs, the set of your muscles. Otherwise I can’t be your Brain.”</p><p>            “No one’s touched me except doctors since I came back from Arcturus,” Pitch said, matter-of-factly. “And they didn’t need to know me as well as you will.”</p><p>            “I’ll be gentle. I’ll go slow. No one’s rushing us here.”</p><p>            “That’s what makes me nervous,” Pitch said, beginning to undo his jumpsuit.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Tags from Tumblr:</p><p>#emotions and giant robots what more do you want#um...emotional incest?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A lot of Pitch is revealed and Sandy learns what’s facing them on their way to becoming co-pilots. Also there’s a Shakespeare quote, which I’m sure is what you were looking for in a self-indulgent, angsty, gay, love story with giant robots in it.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Originally posted on Tumblr on 7/14/2013.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>            “Should I stand still, or walk around for a few moments?” Pitch asked, once he was standing naked before Sandy.</p><p>            Sandy looked his thin frame up and down. “Walk, if you would. At your natural pace first, and then very slowly.”</p><p>            “My natural pace.” Pitch looked at the floor. “I can ape how I walked before the battle of Arcturus, but it will be a very poor imitation of that…”</p><p>            “No,” said Sandy. “Walk how you normally walk now. We can’t try to repeat the past. The past is where we died.”</p><p>            “Right,” Pitch muttered. “Well, behold your new Body.”</p><hr/><p>            In the gym, Tooth flew through a series of gymnastic maneuvers on the uneven parallel bars, finishing with a perfect landing. “Tape!” she shouted, and her exercise played back on a small console. “Fuck,” she breathed, and pressed the small metallic bead in her ear. “North, I was two degrees off my standard body angles today. And I couldn’t tell.”</p><p>            There was a clank in her ear as North set down his weights. “Two degrees? Tooth, is impossible to get that accuracy in battle anyway. When battle is all you, is too close for two degrees to make difference. When we aim for long range, when it matters, we can compensate for that because we both have input.”</p><p>            “The precision might have mattered in the last battle. If I could have gotten every last Fearling fighter I aimed for, maybe they wouldn’t have overwhelmed the Butterfly Effect. Maybe…”</p><p>            “Only maybe, Tooth. Was hardest battle we’ve ever fought. I am sure you will be back to perfection in no time.”</p><p>            “I suppose so. The battle, Psyche’s death, the idea of Pitch Black being Sandy’s new Body—I’m should be more surprised that I’m not more off. I wish I knew what was happening with them.”</p><p>            “Probably not what happened after we first interfaced.” North laughed.</p><p>            “North! But speaking of, training’s probably not going to use up all my nervous energy.”</p><p>            “When my Body calls, I will answer,” North said into her earpiece.</p><hr/><p>            “I’m just saying,” Jack said to Aster as they jogged around the track, “It’s not right. At all.”</p><p>            “Save your breath, Frost.” The only reason Aster wasn’t a Body pilot was that the Colossi for Earth all had Body systems calibrated only for humans. Physically, he was more than a match for Jack, and kept up with him easily. “You know that worse has been said about us.”</p><p>            “What they say is worse because they’re ignorant. But they’re right about what happens when you interface with someone. When we were assigned, I wasn’t planning…”</p><p>            “Neither was I, Jack. But it still wasn’t inevitable. If you hadn’t brought up the subject…”</p><p>            “I’m a Body, Aster. That’s how I think. And since Pitch was the Body…”</p><p>            “He had a damn good reason not to bring up the subject. Look, we all know Pitch isn’t easy to get along with, and he’s pretty strange—otherwise why would only his daughter have been most compatible with him? But that’s no guarantee he was keepin’ it in the family. And as someone whose mind was judged to be most in sync with a giant space rabbit, maybe you should reserve judgment for a while.”</p><p>            “I find it hard to believe that after co-piloting for seven years you’re still able to think of us as strange.”</p><p>            “I’m a Brain, kid, I’m supposed to think. Now what do you say to some sprints?”</p><p>            “Can we do distance instead? I’d like to win.”</p><hr/><p>            Pitch walked around the platform. His knees were obviously stiff, and it was clear that he had lost a great deal of muscle mass over the past two years. He put his feet down carefully, as if he didn’t trust his ankles to bend in the right directions. Sandy could see that he was gritting his teeth as he moved, though out of pain or embarrassment he couldn’t tell. Still, behind the decrepit movements, Sandy felt he could see determination like a pillar of fire, as well as just a hint—the barest hint—of the lost strength and grace that had made Pitch such a promising Body in the first place.</p><p>            “What a piece of work is a man,” Sandy quoted quietly. “How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god—the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—”</p><p>            Pitch stopped and smirked at him, placing one long-fingered hand on a bony hip. “And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?”</p><p>            “I know how the quote ends,” Sandy said. “Is this why you asked me to meet you here?”</p><p>            Pitch made his way over to one of the interface terminals and pulled out something from behind it. It was a cane. “You see how desperate Lunanof is? If we don’t veg out when we interface, we’ll die in our first battle. Whoever heard of fighting with a Body who couldn’t even <em>move</em>?”</p><p>            “I think you should come lie down on the platform,” Sandy said. “Obviously you aren’t going to be moving like that by the time we’re sent out.”</p><p>            Pitch scoffed. “How do you know?”</p><p>            “Okay, fine. I don’t know. But don’t you want to have another chance fighting the Fearlings? We’re going to try to make you better, Pitch. Maybe we’ll fail, and you’ll get worse. But you’re <em>probably</em> not going to be the same.”</p><p>            “I suppose revenge is as good a motive as any,” Pitch said, heaving himself onto the platform and lying down. “Yours as well?”</p><p>            “I expect it will be, once I’m able to properly think about what happened,” Sandy said. He got off his platform and moved so he was standing by Pitch’s shoulders. “Are you like this because of injuries sustained during Arcturus or because you weren’t taking care of yourself?”</p><p>            “Yes.” Pitch turned to look at Sandy. “You know what it’s like. You’re in the early stages of it now. The doctors gave me a clean bill of health, but I’m still not convinced I should be alive. I couldn’t train while I was insane, and I couldn’t train while I was in custody. Now…” he shrugged. “I suppose I haven’t been eating much, either. Outside of custody no one tells me to.”</p><p>            “God,” Sandy said. “If this is you, two years on, we’re really fucked.”</p><p>            “Not like we weren’t before,” Pitch pointed out. “Maybe we’ll rehabilitate each other.”</p><p>            “The blind leading the blind,” Sandy muttered. “I’m going to start with your hand.”</p><p>            “Fine.”</p><p>            Sandy took Pitch’s hand in his own, carefully manipulating the long digits, pressing his fingers lightly between the bones, tracing the lines on his palm. Pitch’s skin was cold, and without thinking about it much, Sandy chafed his hand between his own.</p><p>            “What are you doing?” Pitch asked, sounding puzzled.</p><p>            “Oh—you have really poor circulation. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. That’s something that would make more sense for me to do…"</p><p>            “After we interface,” Pitch finished. “Maybe that you did it now is a good sign.”</p><p>            “I’m going to move on.” Sandy’s inspection of Pitch’s arm was just as thorough as that of his hand, and Pitch found himself calming under the steady, gentle touches of Sandy’s warm hands, as he hadn’t been calm since before Arcturus.</p><p>            When Sandy got to his neck, though, the situation changed. “You’re incredibly tense,” Sandy murmured. “You’ve got to deal with that before any training.” His hands drifted to his shoulders. “If you don’t want to work with physical therapy, maybe I could help? I know some massage…”</p><p>            Pitch looked up at Sandy’s concerned face. How long had it been, since someone had been concerned for <em>him</em>, just him? Concerned, and touching him with warm hands, and wanting to ease his pain, and—he colored in embarrassment. “Sandy, my circulation’s not as bad as it could be…”</p><p>            Sandy glanced along Pitch’s body and saw that he had begun to get an erection. “If you’re uncomfortable I’ll stop. We could do this some other time.”</p><p>            “I’m just embarrassed that my body thinks it’s still alive, apparently. Sandy, I—I’m sorry. You need to do your inventory. But your hands are warm and you seem to care—” His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “I’m a mess, Sandy. And I’ve been so alone—and so my body reacts so stupidly.”</p><p>            “It’s fine, Pitch. I’m glad you’re not totally broken. I’m going to continue—maybe a little bit more cursorily than before, but I need to get an idea of you. Then,” he said as he began to work his way down Pitch’s other arm, “I guess we’ll go our separate ways for a little while. But when it’s time to sleep, I think you should come to my quarters. You don’t have to, but you’re right about being alone. No euphemism: I think we should sleep together. Brain and Body pilots aren’t meant to be alone, ever.”</p><p>            “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Pitch asked, beginning to relax again.</p><p>            “I think Psyche would be distressed to know I was sleeping alone. And hey—what are a few awkward boners between co-pilots in training?”</p><p>            “Well, if you put it that way, I suppose I can’t refuse.”  </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>I would like to dedicate this to marypsue, who was ill and couldn’t go to the movies tonight.</p><p>In which cuddling is good for everyone and synchronicity begins to develop.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Originally posted on Tumblr on 7/20/2013.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>            Pitch knocked softly on Sandy’s door several hours after the rest of the base had quieted down.</p><p>            “Oh—you’re still awake.” Pitch stood awkwardly in the hallway.</p><p>            “I haven’t really slept since the battle,” Sandy told him, beckoning him into his quarters. “And it’s been a long time since you’ve had a <em>good</em> night’s sleep, hasn’t it?”</p><p>            “The nightmares. I don’t know if it makes any sense, but I know that I’ll have them if I sleep alone. Don’t know for sure if I will if I sleep with you. Thought it was worth a try.”</p><p>            “Well I know I won’t sleep if I’m alone. I’m glad you came by so I can see what happens if there’s someone next to me who’s not—not—not Psyche.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.</p><p>            “If you need to cry I understand,” Pitch said, making his way over to the bed and sitting down. “Believe me when I say you’re otherwise holding up surprisingly well. If you had seen me when they rescued me…”</p><p>            “If I’m holding up it’s because some of Psyche is still with me,” Sandy said. “She could handle anything. You know she never felt fear when we saw the Fearling ships? They say that’s impossible. Not for Psyche. She had given up being afraid. Back when she was a teen, she was afraid a lot. Of not being loved, of being too strange looking, of not being smart enough to be a lawyer like her mom was and wanted her to be. ‘And then I dyed.’ That’s how she put it. And she would laugh. She put on that mask and spandex and wasn’t afraid of anything anymore. She took the aptitude test on a dare. She wasn’t even afraid…” Sandy fell silent.</p><p>            Pitch waited patiently for him to speak again.</p><p>            “She wasn’t even afraid when she died,” Sandy said, looking Pitch in the eyes. “She was <em>pissed</em>. She was angry that the Fearlings were making her leave me. And she grieved, in her last moments, because we were being split up and she loved me. And I felt her love, and her sorrow, and her anger—but she was not afraid.”</p><p>            “You’re lucky,” Pitch said quietly. “I believe Psyche’s death was unique among those who have died at the hands of the Fearlings.”</p><p>            “Imagine other people hearing our new definition of luck.”</p><p>            Pitch almost smiled.</p><p>            “But at least we understand each other. And that’s what’s important at this point, right?”</p><p>            “True. Now, if you were serious about this, Sandy, I’d just as soon try to sleep. I’m very…very tired.”</p><p>            “Awful hard to joke when you’re alone in your own head.”</p><p>            Pitch sighed as he took off his flightsuit, revealing a white undershirt and black undershorts. “I’m starting to think the anti-facers are right when they say all pilots are crazy.”</p><p>            “There’s more madness in solitude.” Sandy, already dressed similarly to Pitch, pulled back the covers on the bed, which was a double—a concession of the builders of the base to the officially unacknowledged realities of Colossi pilots. “Come on.”</p><p>            Once under the covers, Sandy realized that Pitch might not be used to this sort of sleeping arrangement for pilots. “You and Seraphina—how did you…?”</p><p>            “Holding hands. One bed. I suppose our door closing every night looked terrible.”</p><p>            “I think pilots should have been able to understand,” Sandy said, scooting closer to Pitch. “They should have sympathized. Well, we can do that, or get a lot closer. Psyche and I—well, there’s a reason why these pajamas look new.”</p><p>            “I can’t do that yet,” Pitch said, though he reached out for Sandy’s hand. “You’re so warm. Sorry, my hands and feet are going to be freezing.”</p><p>            “It’s all right.” Sandy shrugged. “I think I’m actually running a bit of a fever, anyway.”</p><p>            Pitch let go of Sandy’s hand and pressed the back of his hand to Sandy’s forehead. “You are.” He frowned. “Have you been to the infirmary?”</p><p>            Sandy shook his head. “I don’t want base gossip to be more worrying than it already is.”</p><p>            “Well.” Pitch took Sandy’s hand again. “Maybe we really are compatible. But I don’t know if it’s good for either of us.”</p><p>            Sandy moved closer yet to Pitch. “I’m pretty angry at Lunanof for throwing us together like this. Want to make him regret it?”</p><p>            “But not by separating?” Pitch’s voice was anxious.</p><p>            “No,” Sandy said, voice soft. “By being so great he can never tell us what to do again.”</p><p>            “Is that what Psyche would do?”</p><p>            “It’s what the Butterfly Effect would do.”</p><p>            “Then the Black Gaia will try to help.”</p><p>            Sandy reached out and embraced Pitch, who, after hesitating slightly, wrapped his own long arms around Sandy, sighing as he did so. Sandy turned off the lights with a word, and for long minutes they didn’t say anything.</p><p>            Pitch broke the silence by coughing. “Fuck, Sandy, you’re a strong breather. And you take freakishly deep breaths.”</p><p>            “Stop trying to breathe with me before we’ve interfaced. And I do not take freakishly deep breaths. You take weirdly shallow breaths.”</p><p>            “I wasn’t trying, it just happened.”</p><p>            Sandy pressed his forehead to Pitch’s. “Can we really try to sleep now? I was actually almost dozing off.”</p><p>            “Good. And yes. Sorry.”</p><p>            Though neither of them would ever know this, that first night, they fell asleep within two minutes of each other. And even without seeing the changes in their brainwaves, these moments would have been easy to observe, for as soon as they were asleep, their embrace became closer and more relaxed.</p><p>            As the night passed, Sandy moved his head to rest on Pitch’s shoulder. Pitch threw one of his legs over Sandy’s. Sandy slid one of his legs between Pitch’s.</p><p>            They didn’t remain entwined quite like this the whole night, but neither’s movements woke the other. Finally, by morning, Pitch was curled around Sandy, spooning the shorter man and resting his chin in the crook of his neck.</p><hr/><p>            “Well, that’s different,” Sandy said softly, with almost a lilt of a laugh in his voice. Pitch pressed his face into Sandy’s neck and made an incoherent protest against mornings. <em>What was going on who cares when was the last time he had been this </em>warm<em> and there’s not so much pain and maybe that’s okay?</em> After a few moments, Pitch’s thoughts became more organized and as he remembered why he was here, with another person, he also realized what Sandy’s comment had probably been referring to and rolled to his other side with an embarrassed groan.</p><p>            “Now that all of you is awake,” Sandy said, propping himself up on one elbow, “I’ve got a couple questions. But first…I want to say thank you. With you here, I really slept. I dreamed. And I want to know—was it the same for you? Did sleeping together help with your nightmares?”</p><p>            “I don’t remember dreaming at all,” Pitch said, sounding almost awed. “Not one nightmare.”</p><p>            “Good,” said Sandy, his voice full of warmth. “Now here’s the other question. Do you want…physical release?”</p><p>            Pitch’s throat went dry. Just minutes before, his surprisingly strong morning erection had been pressed against Sandy’s plump rear, and even the idea of being able to go back to that position, and maybe begin to move, and maybe take their clothes off, and—</p><p>            “I’m a physical wreck who hasn’t been able to contemplate having sex with another person since I became a pilot.”</p><p>            “Is that a yes or a no?” Sandy asked, tossing his pillow at the back of Pitch’s head.</p><p>            “Hey! I think…no?”</p><p>            “Hm.” Pitch heard Sandy getting out of bed behind him. “Then it’s time to get out of bed, Physical Wreck. We’re leaving to start training as soon as I get dressed for the gym, and I can move faster than most people would think.”</p><p>            Pitch turned to stare at him. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”</p><p>            “You’ll know when I start being able to not be serious.”</p><p>            “Oh for—” Pitch drew the covers over his head. “I made the wrong choice, didn’t I?” he asks, voice slightly muffled.</p><p>            Sandy lifted one side of the mattress so Pitch began to roll off the other. “Up and at ‘em!”</p><p>            “Fuck!” With a thud, Pitch fell to the floor. “You’re stronger than you look, too.”</p><p>            “No, you’re just scrawny. Now hurry up! The road to recovery, revenge, and telling Lunanof where to stuff it is paved with weights and cardio.”</p><p>            “Fine. FINE. But Sandy, I swear on my fucking pilot certification that if you <em>dare</em> set the gym speakers to play <em>anything</em> like—”</p><p>            “‘Gonna Fly Now’?”</p><p>            “I am going to punch you with these scrawny arms.” Pitch managed to disentangle himself from the sheets and sat up, glaring at Sandy.</p><p>            “Hey—we were thinking the same thing,” Sandy said, one side of his mouth twitching upward.</p><p>            “Whoo, get out the neural nodes,” Pitch grumbled.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Comments from Tumblr:</p><p>emeraldembers reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:<br/>I will be in awe until the end of days as to how you can juggle so many universes and make them all feel like separate entities without ever losing your grasp of the characters in them &lt;3. You are astonishing.</p><p>And all the little Pacific Rim hints in this are killing me, because a lot of your threads about characterisation tie in with things I was thinking during that movie, and it’s wonderful &lt;3.</p><p>marypsue reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:<br/>You are far, far too good to me. And this just keeps getting better and better!#I really do need to see this movie don't I</p><p>bowlingforgerbils said: precious pilot babies. &lt;3 I am really enjoying this story!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Comments from Tumblr:</p><p>bowlingforgerbils said: I am super, super excited about where this is going. Can’t wait for more!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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